Maurie Berman, founder of Chicago's iconic Superdawg, dies at 89

Several veterans opened food stands to supplement their student incomes on the GI Bill after World War II, but Maurie Berman wanted something different.

"He wanted to open something more noteworthy," said his son, Scott Berman, 64. "A building, a tower, something with some identity."

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So was born the friendly, family-run Northwest Side vintage drive-in Superdawg, with its order booth that looks like an airport control tower and its two 12-foot-tall papier-mache hot dogs designed in 1948 that stand on its roof.

Mr. Berman died Sunday, May 17, of heart problems at 89, his son said.

Aside from his son, he also leaves behind a wife of 68 years, two other children, five grandchildren and a 6-year-old great-grandchild, who had her first shift at the restaurant last week.

Scott Berman and Mr. Berman's daughter, Lisa Drucker, and their spouses and children have helped run the business, they said Sunday afternoon while at the store's original location, 6363 N. Milwaukee Ave.

A second location, in Wheeling, features the same rooftop hot dog caricatures — a leopard print-wearing strongman and his tutu-clad mate, modeled after Mr. Berman and his surviving wife, Flaurie. The location is managed by a granddaughter, Laura Ustick

"He was able to build and run a highly successful, iconic institution and at the same time, build and run and establish a close and loving family," Drucker, 53, said of her father.

The business now supports about 50 employees, but Flaurie Berman worked as the store's first carhop.

The couple graduated together from Von Steuben High School in the North Park neighborhood and married in August 1947, shortly after Mr. Berman returned from serving in the Army in World War II and a year before they opened Superdawg.

Flaurie Berman graduated from Northwestern with a teaching degree, and he was studying accounting at Northwestern at the time. They opened the drive-in two summers before they realized that running the store was more fun than being a teacher or an accountant and focused on it full time, his son and daughter said.

Mr. Berman designed the store's logo and slogans, including a human-looking Superdawg that lounges in "super fries" and a promise that, "We're doing our darndest to serve every customer every time in the manner that will make you want to return and bring your friends with you."

Most of the store's details that Mr. Berman specified in the 1940s remain the same today — from the original hot dog recipe and the french fry-cutting machine he designed himself, to the bookkeeping and the food production line.

Mr. Berman had no outside hobbies, according to his children. Superdawg was his life.

With his children and grandchildren, he enjoyed riding in the family car, scoping out new restaurants and old buildings and pointing out interesting signs. His family, employees and friends in the community would remember him as happy, sweet and warm, his children said.